Various forms of storage systems are used today. These forms include direct attached storage (DAS) network attached storage (NAS) systems, storage area networks (SANs), and others. Network storage systems are commonly used for a variety of purposes, such as providing multiple users with access to shared data, backing up data and others.
A storage system typically includes at least one computing system executing a storage operating system for storing and retrieving data on behalf of one or more client processing systems (“clients”). The storage operating system stores and manages shared data containers in a set of mass storage devices, such as magnetic or optical disks or tapes.
Information stored at storage devices may be frequently replicated. Managing and uniquely naming the replicated copies can be challenging as storage systems span across networks and data centers. Conventional systems typically use a limited number of identifiers for identifying replicated copies. The identifiers are recycled when a replicated copy is deleted. This is an undesirable limitation since the numbers of replicated copies continue to grow in today's data centers. Continuous efforts are being made to efficiently manage replicated storage copies.